Sandstorm
by LittleLinor
Summary: BKO speculation fic. Baelheit wasn't really a social teenager, but that doesn't mean he was totally lonely.


I WAS FORCED TO WRITE THIS.

No, seriously, I HATE doing speculation. Writing the future is ok, but inventing the past... yeah. It doesn't sit well with me.

However, my almighty BK muse and a friend of hers assaulted me on msn until I wrote this.

This means it's dedicated to them,and that if you have any complaints about the speculation, it goes to them too. Their fault, their responsability.

Crit on the actual fic (style, grammar, etc) still comes to me, though ;)

So... this was written for No, the said muse, when she asked for young, nerdy Baelheit.

Of course, since we all know Milly had a mother, I HAD to add her there. And, well, we all know that apart from the stubborness, Milly can't have inherited her personality and semeness from her father.

Which brought Stern's personality. Which reminds me, whoever knows where her name comes from and guesses why I chose it gets a cookie (or maybe a request fic, if I feel like I can write one)

WARNINGS: spoilers AND speculation. There's no smex in this one.

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**Sandstorm**

Being fifteen was no small issue in Alfard. Baelheit readjusted the hood of the cape he wore above his uniform -it was against the rules, really, but there was no better way to get through the sandstorms, his mother had taught him- and started the long treck home.

Most of his classmates had left earlier, on foot like him, or taken home by their parents on the new mechanical carts that the emperor gave to the most worthy families of the empire. There was no way he would have passed the chance to use the school library until it closed, though. His family was far from rich, and it was already a great chance that he had been accepted into the imperial academy. They had no library of their own, just a small, one-room apartment in lower Mintaka. His mother always said that it was still larger than what she was used to, though. She was Azhani, and considered the houses of Mintaka a great evolution from the rocky towers of Azha, where everyone lived together, regardless of family. "Here, I can have a cosy home with my family", she would say. "And that's all I could have asked for."

Baelheit wanted more, though. He didn't mind being hungry much, but he _did_ mind his brain having nothing to process. With a seamstress mother and a soldier father, nothing had foreshadowed that the child would be so bright. But it was this intellect that had gotten him inside the academy. He didn't care about food or money, as long as he survived, but he had a tremendous hunger for knowledge, one that drove him to stay at school after lessons to read whetever books he could find, to work harder at home even when his homework was done, to win his way into the factory workers' hearts to see how the new machines were assembled, how they worked. He wanted to become a scientist, to learn how to cure the illness that had taken his grandfather back in Azha, to build new, stronger and more convenient tools to make life in Alfard easier -the country was harsh, and many people left for the green forests of Sadaal Suud- to make his parents proud and his country powerful.

There was more to life than a small apartment in an alley of sandy Mintaka, he thought.

A voice called his name and he looked up, surprised. A silhouette draped in a cape and hood much like his own appeared out of the raging sand. He smiled. There was only one person he knew who wore an Azhani-style cape -he had been the one to give it to her. Green eyes smiled at him from under the hood.

"Did you stay late reading again? You'll tire your eyes that way…"

He chuckled, bowing his head in apology. "I think it's a bit too late… the doctor said I'd need to get glasses… we can't afford them for the moment though…". He raised his head, smiling at her. "Were you waiting for me?"

"Kinda. I got called in the headmaster's office again. And when he finally let me out I thought it wouldn't be long until you came, so…"

He shook his head, chuckling.

"Stern, Stern… one day you'll need to stop getting in trouble so often."

"And _you_ need to stop studying so much. Say, Heit, when I'm finally legal and I get my share of the family's money, I want to leave on a trip across the Islands. You should come with me. It'd give you a change of air."

They started on the sand-obscured path to Mintaka, leaving behind them the underground academy and its rock stairs.

"I don't really know… I don't have a lot of money, and I'm not sure I'll have time…"

"I'll pay, and you know it." She sighed at his closed look. "Besides," she added with a teasing tone, " we would definitely stop at Anuenue's school of magic. I hear they have great scholars there…"

She smirked as he suddenly raised his head.

"Really?"

"Of course. So, deal?"

He smiled.

"… yeah."

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Thanks for reading and please review


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